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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

News at Eleven: [Andrew] Motion has repeatedly told interviewers

he was proud to receive the laureateship--and just as pleased to relinquish it. He wrote Silver in a burst of renewed creativity that came to him after stepping down from his public role in 2009. "It was a very intense period in my life," he says. "Within a short time, my father died, I was no longer laureate, I got married again after years of living on my own and I moved house. I felt liberated in all kinds of ways. My relationship with my father hadn't been a bad one, but it was complicated. I completed Silver in 18 months in a terrific state of elation, getting up early every morning and writing in a sort of trance."